


Rules of Good Sense

by Abyssiniana



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Break Up, Flashback, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Modern AU, Moving On, Past Adashi - Freeform, Post-Break Up, SHEITH - Freeform, Shiro and Keith are married, very lowkey though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 14:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18033647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssiniana/pseuds/Abyssiniana
Summary: Shiro Birthday Exchange gift forBenji!He had been craving white chocolate, and despite his husband’s insistence that there was some dark chocolate in the fridge at home, Shiro still wanted to grab one of those little bars. The box, however, was fucking empty – no one likes white chocolate, what the hell, this never happened before – and as if he wasn't pissed enough, of all the people who could be within a close radius, he spotted his ex.Well, fuck.— A break-up, a meet-up and a made-up.





	Rules of Good Sense

Takashi Shirogane had made quite a few mistakes in his twenty-eight years.

 

He once cheated on an important test he hadn’t had time to prepare for. Neglected a couple of plants on the parapet of his bedroom for long enough to kill them. Sneakily stole a handful of candy when he was a kid because the shop owner assumed he wouldn’t have any money on him and kicked him out.

 

But people tended to overlook them and see only the bronze peaks of his past, the silver glory of his present and the golden promise of his future. Most times, he was satisfied with that. What was the past if not a sculpted bit of time-forged records, aged clay forgotten in the corner of the atelier? Past was about remembering names, birthdays and grocery lists. It was a chronicle about footsteps on the sand, a trail washed away by salted water. Life was forward and backwards was history.

 

But every now and then, his past returned to him in the most ridiculous of ways, in the oddest of times and most random of places. Like the local 24 hours supermarket, on a tempting aisle his nutritionist didn’t allow him to visit. On a Thursday evening. Near closing hours.

 

He had been craving white chocolate, and despite his husband’s insistence that there was some dark chocolate in the fridge at home, Shiro still wanted to grab one of those little bars. The box, however, was fucking empty –  _ no one likes white chocolate, what the hell, this never happened before _ – and as if he wasn't pissed enough, of all the people who could be within a close radius, he spotted his  _ ex _ . 

 

Well, fuck. 

 

Breaking up wasn’t a bad decision, Shiro could never regret that night; it had, in fact, freed both of them from a messy tangling of shackles neither of them was really aware of. But what led to the separation… Well. It hadn’t been pretty, a succession of misunderstandings that gradually filled up the metaphorical glass of their patience until it poured and sank everything they were together, and the mess would have been easily avoidable if they hadn’t both been so stubborn about it and simply talked.

 

But Adam never just  _ talked _ , and Shiro was better off avoiding the conflict altogether.

 

So, seeing Adam again after four years of unintentionally (or perhaps not) avoiding each other’s presence was a bit of a shock. He hadn’t aged beyond a few missable crinkles on the corners of his eyes. He dressed the same, simple and neat, an elegant turtleneck and plain jeans.

 

_ Don't come closer, don't come closer, don't come closer, don't notice me. _

 

“Takashi?” 

 

Yeah right.  _ You're six foot one, Takashi Shirogane, you're hard to miss. _

 

“Adam.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The break up hadn’t been… subtle. At least everyone in the neighborhood must have known, either by the volume of their voices or by the recurrence of their arguments. It was only a matter of time, and before he walked into their shared home, he had thought just that.

 

He adjusted his black hoodie around the hem before deciding that he couldn’t stand motionless on the porch much longer without creating some sort of suspicion to his neighbors’ eyes. Said and done, barely a step inside, he heard Adam’s voice erupting from the kitchenette.

 

“You didn’t pick up my calls.”

 

Adam chopped half an onion to add to his omelette with more aggressiveness than necessary, the knife hitting the cutting board with an impeccable rhythm. It was a bit early for dinner, but Shiro had long since stopped questioning Adam’s schedule; they never ate together anymore, anyway. A vegetable mixture of peppers, corn, and carrot was added to the bowl where two eggs had been previously whisked with a bit of milk.

 

“Yeah. Sorry about that.” Shiro replied, a beat too late. He pulled his boots off and left them by the door, futilely avoiding the kitchen as he could, since he did have to walk across it to move onwards to the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower.”

 

The knife was slammed against the board. “ _ You didn’t pick up the phone when I called you. _ ” Shiro sighed at the slow repetition, hand resting on the door frame as he looked over his shoulder. “What if something had happened to you? Would I have to receive a call from the hospital to find out this rain made your arm act up or something?” As if entitled to the answer, Adam pressed further, without as much as looking at Shiro, eyebrow furrowing behind his glasses, jaw clenched. “Who were you with?”

  
“A friend.”

 

_ Keith. _ He purposely hid the identity of his friend; Adam had this whole made-up scenario in his head where Keith was the evil villain with the bad intention of stealing Shiro away; he was already angry, no use tossing more wood into the fire.   
  
“A male friend, I’m guessing?”   
  
Here we go. “That really isn’t relevant.”   
  
“I’m sorry, but it does concern me if my fiance is spending time with someone else. Is this something I should expect from you now? Going out on dates and hanging out with other men, without as much as telling me?”   
  
“It wasn’t a date, Adam, don’t start with that. It was just coffee.”   
  
“ _ Just _ coffee.” Adam snickered bitterly, shaking his head in disappointment. Or was it frustration? The whisking motion sped up gradually, a portion of the mixture slipping over to the marble surface of the countertop. He gave up on the task at hand, drying his hands on the front of his plaid pajama pants and leaving the batter for later. “Is it  **_ever_ ** just coffee?”   
  
The priority of the shower was pushed aside in favor of enclosing their distance. Shiro paced towards his fiance, a word that now tasted wrong on his tongue. He reached for Adam’s arm, stroking it lightly as if that would do any good to soothe them both, as if his hand could fix the cracks in their hearts. “Adam. Calm down–”   
  
“Fuck  _ off _ , Takashi, don’t you dare lay your hand on me.” Shiro’s touch was slapped away, and he bit on his lip, retreating his hand; he knew better than to try again. With Adam, there was nothing more to salvage from this wreckage of a relationship.    
  
_ I do everything for you, Takashi, and this is what I receive in return? Did he suck you off?! Did you fuck him?! Is that what you go about doing now?! Does the other guy even know you’re with me or are you lying to us both? I don’t even know if there are others? You disgust me, Takashi, if you’re half the man you once were, you’ll tell me to my fucking face that you’re done with me! _   
  
Shiro’s vision became hazy until he could barely make out Adam’s features before him, until the words he screamed were nothing but white noise in the back of his head. He allowed him to yell, each word resounding further and further away.   
  
When had it begun? Rather, where had they, as lovers, ended? Looking down at his mechanical limb, Shiro didn’t have to add two and two to figure it out. The accident had been damaging, both for his physical and mental health.   
  
He was getting there, so slowly, but he was getting better. In the path to recovery, he lost Adam as well as his ability to love that man, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.    
  
What else had his condition as an amputee ruined?   
  
He was slammed against the wall and didn’t quite grasp the ache on the back of his head it until he felt desperate lips against his, a tug on his shirt and then it was on the floor, and so were they.   
  
Hours might have passed because it was nighttime, and Shiro’s head laid on the pillow. The built-in full-body mirror on the wardrobe showed him the sad reflection of a shared bed, empty of anything but two exhausted bodies: false love, false warmth, a false afterglow with sweat beading at his forehead.   
  
He sighed at the mirror. That was the face of someone who couldn’t even stand to look at himself until very recently. The white streak of hair was a permanent reminder of things gone wrong, of a slip of a tire in the rain and the shock of two vehicles in the middle of the highway. His arm, of fake, mechanical flesh, substitute to a limb caught between car parts, the scar across his nose a cruel receipt for all he had to pay after what he lost in the accident.   
  
His brain urged him to look away under the false pretense that he should get some rest, but his eyes sunk in the image before them. With his chest tightening with an anxiety attack, Shiro was kidnapped into a mental battlefield where weapons could not save him from the attacks he threw upon himself.   
  
His friends – family, to some extent – had fortunately survived. Matt with a minor cut on his cheek, and Sam with a broken leg which healed fairly quickly. But Shiro… part of him was lost for way too long, a year and a half of his life wasted in a coma. More than his arm, more than his life, Shiro lost Adam somewhere in between.   
  
“ _ Don’t you ever do this to me again, Takashi, _ ” Adam had said, next to the hospital bed. He cried, sobbed on Shiro’s chest when he finally woke up, made him promise to never, ever, leave him. Back then he had hoped things would go back to what they had once been, a young couple rushing into engagement, ready to face the world on their own despite the setback, but Adam had assumed a self-entitled role of personal nurse or permanent caretaker. Of all things, Shiro could not stand that type of attitude.    
  
_ Did you take your pain pills yet? Get some rest. Don’t push yourself. How’s your arm? Let me help you. Do you need me to do this for you?  Stop, don’t move around so much. Are you feeling okay? Should I call the doctor? Are you going out? Alone? What if something happens?! You can’t do this, you can’t do that.  _ **_Am I suffocating you, Takashi–_ ** __  
  
The man who currently stared back at him in the mirror was someone who was stuck in a relationship where love had died out so long ago, a love from which neither of them was capable of stepping out of. Guilt? Convenience? The fragile grounds of a long-made promise? God only knew, but what Shiro did know was that any remnant of passion between them had long since died.   
  
Watery grey eyes met their reflected counterpart in the mirror. Was this the reflection of a cheater? Someone who was too much of a coward to face his problems? Or was this the face of the broken man who finally had gathered the balls to move on from who had been slowly killing what was left of him?   
  
Some time in his delirium he looked to the other side of the bed, Adam’s sad eyes peeking through strands of disheveled light brown hair. It wasn’t supposed to hurt when he pressed against his side, but Adam’s closeness was an active itch, uncomfortable, nearly repulsive. Still, he didn’t move nor pushed the other away. Adam laid his head on Shiro’s chest, like he always did, and Shiro’s flesh arm (because Adam abhorred the cold of his prosthetic against his naturally warm skin) automatically wrapped itself around the other. Not out of comfort. Not out of love. 

_ Habit. _

 

“.... We’re over, aren’t we, Takashi?” Adam asked, voice too soft for the sharp edge of his words.   
  
In the silence that followed, Shiro thought of Keith. He thought of things Keith had said earlier that day, the hint of red on his ears whenever their eyes met, the bumps of their knees under the table, the touches neither of them bothered to retreat. Those memories tickled him pleasantly on the lower belly, his heart beating a bit too fast in his chest. There used to be something like that with Adam, a little too long ago, but the invisible thread that connected them was tangled around their necks, ceasing their capability to breathe and they were choking, both of them, suffocated by each other’s presence and the ones to blame were no others but themselves.   
  
Their relationship was broken beyond correction, both were aware, but they had been delaying to take action. The decision they had to make regarding the relationship was, in fact, already made.   
  
They just needed to officialize it.   
  
“Yeah… I think we are.” He nodded, and Adam did too, however briefly.    
  
Shiro woke up some time in the early morning to a cold, empty bed, but he didn’t move from the saturninity of the sheets, not while he still heard doors and drawers opening, a few duvel bags being filled, and the front door closing.

 

There was no sadness in his tears when Adam left; only relief.   
  


 

* * *

 

 

Adam kept an eyebrow raised as he paced towards Shiro, expensive shoes on white linoleum, hand inside the pocket of his beige trenchcoat, the other holding the shopping basket.

 

A small child – no older than five – walked close to Adam, big eyes focused on the vast offer of candies and treats. His small hand hovered a pack of chocolates, then a lollipop, until it grasped a pack of brick shaped gummies, artificial strawberry flavoured – a wonderful choice, if Shiro would say so. “May I take these?”

 

Adam made an agreeing “hmhm” noise, his hand encircling the boy in a half-hug.

 

“That’s... a child.” Shiro needlessly observed, tongue dry and eyes blown wide.

 

“I’m aware, Takashi.” There was the hint of a chuckle, hidden by that layer of condescension that always came with whatever left Adam’s patronizing mouth. No, that was simply what Shiro remembered of their last bits of dialogue before their breakup; the words came deprived of harm.

 

“But… You’re holding– The child.” He ignored the confusion written all over his former partner's face, disbelief replacing his delicacy. “Adam, you  _ hate _ kids.”

 

Even the child seemed confused at those words, frowning and looking up at the man. Adam bent over slightly, his hand gently resting on the boy’s back. “Go find daddy, will you?” Adam urged him, ruffling his blond hair before he sprinted across the aisle and ran out of sight (with his candy in hand, of course).

 

The silence that settled made Shiro realize how rude he had been; in a desperate attempt to break it, he coughed into his fist, eyes rolling back to the shelf of chocolates. There was nothing to do there if the sweet he was looking for was sold out, so he ought to politely turn his back and pretend he had never seen Adam.

 

“Hey, here it is.” Adam offered, searching his groceries and bringing out the last bar of white chocolate he knew Shiro was looking for. “It was the last.”

 

“Oh, it's okay– you take it.” Before he could effectively refuse it, it was tossed to Shiro's basket; no arguing with that. “Thanks... I thought you didn't like white chocolate though.”

 

“It's an acquired taste. After so long buying it for you, I found that I myself cannot live without it.” 

 

They shared a small laugh, bathing in the reminiscence of distant days, where Shiro almost begged Adam to bring him the specific chocolate bars whenever he went shopping. Adam always said those were bad for him, with all those saturated fats; it wasn’t even real chocolate, just a poor excuse to use cocoa butter and a sugary overload. The laugh hung on for a few seconds before setting into sighs. Any hostility he could be expecting was long dead, he realized, assuaged by years of distance. 

 

What had Adam been up to? Was he still working in that accounting office downtown? How was his mother, the sweet lady who always welcomed him into her home like a son? There were a few questions he didn’t necessary need the answer to, but curiosity itched at the back of his head. 

 

“That boy…?” Shiro began.

 

“He’s not biologically mine, if you’re wondering,” Adam explained, “but I’m more of a parent than his mother ever was, so yes. I do consider him my son.”

 

“Oh.” So Adam had gotten together with a divorced guy? Or someone who had a kid from a previous relationship. Interesting. Of all the things he could imagine his ex doing, that one wouldn’t even be on the list. All that mattered was his happiness, though, and he seemed to get along great with the young boy. 

 

“Shiro?”

 

The voice came from the opposite end of the aisle. Keith, once Kogane, made  _ Shirogane _ as of quite recently. He seemed to understand Shiro had met an acquaintance, so he excused himself almost immediately to respect their privacy. “I think I have everything we needed. Gonna head to the checkout area.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll meet you there in a bit, babe.” Shiro promised, trying not to stutter. His chest swelled in a dizzy kind of happiness that bubbled up inside him whenever he saw his husband. He was so madly in love and he realized that every single day from a different angle. 

 

“Is that Keith?” Adam squinted behind his glasses, peeking over Shiro’s shoulder to see who had called him. “I’m not surprised at all that you ended up with him. Congratulations.”

 

His words were coated in honesty, his smile too. So Shiro smiled back, giving him a little nod. “Thank you…” Adam had moved on, so he assumed, “You got married?”

 

“Not just yet.” He chuckled, laugh deep and honey coated. “No rushing into it this time.”

 

“You do well.” Shiro genuinely said. “I hope you’re happy and that he treats you well.”

 

Adam didn’t reply to that but the smile on his face and the way his brown eyes lit with a little hint of a sparkle removed any need for words regarding that aspect. 

 

“Your man is waiting, and I should be on my way as well, lest those two will fill the cart with ice cream. Nice seeing you again, Takashi. We should catch up some time, if you’ve a mind.”

 

“Uh…” He couldn’t say he had ever imagined his path would cross with Adam again, let alone be able to casually hold a conversation with him, but it felt… nice. Surprisingly. Before they were lovers, they were loyal friends, and the downfall of their relationship was the loss of that friendship in favor of something neither of them was prepared for. “Of course. I’d love to.”

 

“See you around, Takashi.”

 

They walked their separate ways, Shiro to the front of the store and Adam to the back, and Shiro found himself back at Keith’s side before he could count his steps to get there, adding the contents of the basket he carried to what his husband had already put up on the conveyor belt. The lady before them was almost done so their products would be scanned soon.

 

“You okay?” Keith received the kiss on his temple without looking up at Shiro, indigo eyes skimming about the pages of a motorbike themed magazine while he waited in line.

 

One thing Shiro would always appreciate was how Keith honored his space, never invading or stepping a boundary he wasn’t one hundred percent sure Shiro would want him to. There was nothing to hide; Keith knew of his history with Adam, though he may have painted a darker portrait of the man with brushstrokes still guided by the bitterness they had broken with. But people grew, and they had both learned with life that even though Shiro and Adam weren’t meant to love each other as husbands, there would always be a place for friendship and a private type of platonic affection.

 

“I’m good.” He began, holding up the white chocolate bar as if trying to illustrate a point. “You won’t believe who I ran into, though…”


End file.
